From the archives: Ten held after Provo bombs blast London

Sunday 8 March 2009 20.01 EDT
First published on Sunday 8 March 2009 20.01 EDT

Seven men and three women were being questioned by Special Branch officers last night after two bomb explosions in the heart of London which wrecked part of the Old Bailey and shook the army recruiting office and Ministry of Agriculture in Whitehall, killing one man and leaving 215 people injured.

Another two bombs timed to go off at the same time - around 3 pm - were planted in cars outside buildings, but they were found and defused by army and police experts. Last night a row was brewing between Scotland Yard and the City of London police over the time it took the City police to locate the Old Bailey bomb.

The Yard said it warned the City police to search for a green Cortina near the Old Bailey at 2.01. The car was not located until 2.35. The bomb exploded at 2.49. The bombs were at the Old Bailey; the Ministry of Agriculture and army recruiting office, Great Scotland Yard, Whitehall; New Scotland Yard; and the BBC's armed forces radio studio in Dean Stanley Street.

The man who died was Mr Frederick Milton, aged 60, of Surbiton , who worked as caretaker at Hillgate House, next to the Old Bailey. Heads of security met the Prime Minister and Home Secretary during the evening, demanding that "the strictest possible controls" be slapped on the entry of Irish people to this country.

"It is the only way we can begin to prevent these killers getting in," one angry security officer said last night. "At the moment, travellers from Ireland can come and go with only the most slapdash checks at points of entry."

The 10 people questioned last night come from both the Republic and Northern Ireland. They were detained at Heathrow Airport-London before flights left for Belfast and Dublin. All are believed to be members of the Provisional IRA, and some came from Dublin and Belfast only 24 hours before the first bomb, 175lb of gelignite wired to a time-fuse, was found in a crowded street outside New Scotland Yard at 8.30 am.

Police explosives experts early today blew up two cars in Central London. One was in Parliament Square, Westminster, the other in Bell's Yard near the Law Courts. Neither contained explosives. Informed sources in Belfast believe that the bombings were planned at the highest level of the Provisionals' Belfast brigade, against the wishes of most of the leadership in Dublin. It is thought that they were planned weeks ago to coincide with yesterday's Northern Ireland border poll.Peter Harvey and Simon Hoggart